1

iSPIRT Monthly Meeting4th April 2013

2

Agenda

• Playbooks– Mentor Clinic program (10 mins)– ProductNation (5 mins)

• Market Catalysts– iSMB program (Software Adoption Initiative) (10 mins) – M&A Connect program (5 mins)

• Policy – iSPIRT “Think Pieces” (5 mins)– MINT Column (10 mins)– Policy Narratives that we are hearing (15 mins)

3

Playbooks

• Mentor Clinics: 3 roundtables planned in the month of April for 12 product companies• Product Management in Delhi & Bangalore• Positioning & Messaging in Bangalore• Sales to be announced soon

• ProductNation: 7 Community Discussions have been identified for the month of April. 270+ members . Traffic is 15K page views per month. Growing nicely.

4

Market Catalysts - iSMB

• iSMB program (Software Adoption Initiative)

SAI: Software Adoption Initiative- One of the key programs of ISPIRT

• The primary objective of this program is to accelerate the adoption of the software products in India.

• To achieve this objective a framework has been designed to educate and motivate customers to buy software products.

The Key components of the framework

• Created for the targeted customers which cover these aspects: Pain points, Case Studies, Product benefits and Cost Elements

Buyer’s Guide

• To call and get free advice on Product/ Technology adoption

Help Desk for customers

Reach out to the customers

Three executives have reached out to the customers and the following is the result of their activity:• Guides Despatched: 1097• Customers called: 575• Appointments fixed for

discussions in April: 82• Engaged and Requirements

gathered: 23• Customers who are yet to

receive the guide: 70

Product Wise Leads Generated

Product Category Wise Total

leadsERP for Jewelry 10

Accounting 7

CRM nil

Manufacturing 5

Ecom- website 1

Learnings from the pilot• Corrections to be made in the

guide in terms of product benefits and case studies

• Streamline the process of lead handling by Software product companies

• Customers have shared details of products with which they are very satisfied which may need to be a part of SAI.

9

Market Catalysts – M&A Connect

• M&A Connect program (5 mins)• 21st May program

10

Policy: iSPIRT “Think Pieces”• Product Nation blog posts – Witten for product entrepreneurs to share

playbooks. Avinash leads this.• Policy Blue Papers – Written for industry consultation on the policy issue.

Kunal Bajaj leads this.• Policy Briefs – Written for government to elicit policy action. Kunal Bajaj

leads this.• MINT column – Written for non-IT business elites to introduce iSPIRT

mission and stewardship. For now Sharad leads this.• Transforming India Pamphlets – Written for non-IT elites in business and

government to get them to see the transformative potential of the non-conventional solution. For now Sharad leads this.

• Report – Written for government to serve as a reference document with 2-3 years shelf-life. First Report will be on “Why a Vibrant Software product Industry is Vital to India’s Future”. Target Q4’13. For now Vardhani leads this.

11

MINT Column• Who are we targeting? Non-IT Business Elites. Example: Aroon Raman – recent CII

Karnataka head, a writer of fiction (Shadow Throne), and a successful entrepreneur (sold Raman Fibers to ABB).

• What is our intent? Invest meaning into “iSPIRT” word for Business elites . They have probably heard of ISPIRT but they don't know what it stands for.

• What is our content? Three themes:1. Transforming India through large scale technology. We will talk about SMB

Competitiveness, Healthcare Education, Payment networks, etc. here. 2. Product mindsets. Here we need to explain that why collaboration, combinatorial

innovation and disruption are the norm in the product industry. We will build up the idea that product entrepreneur is a different breed of an entrepreneur.

3. Filling institutional voids. Here we will discuss the scaffolding that we are building to connect problems with solutions (iSMB and M&A Connect) and make a case for self-help communities and public-private projects.

• Our team: Peter is driving the MINT interface. Vardhani, post-doc at IIMB, is ghost writing. Prof. Rishi and Nitin Pai are strategizing and getting key ideas nailed down. Sharad, for now, is leading the effort.

12

Mind Map of 1st MINT ArticleServices led

growth insufficient for India to rise

Economic argument used by VISTAS

SW Products can transform India at

largeTheme 1 – it’ll be developed in later articles

Poor outcomes despite Prd startup

activity = Israel Theme 2 – need Product mindset to create winners

Left to itself problem won’t get

solved

Needs stewardship – iSPIRT provides

it!Theme 3 – fill institutional voids

See attached marked up article

13

Policy Narratives (1 of 2)• VISTAS (Vision for an Indian S&T Advancement Strategy) narrative– VISTAS comprises of Electronics, Aerospace and Defense groups. Very active and

dominates government mindshare. – Anchored to the unfolding macro-economic crisis. Points out that services-led growth

model has not lived to its promise. Services are 55% of economy and contribute only 35% of exports. Export contribution is not growing. Meanwhile merchandize trade imbalance is ballooning and is already 10% of GDP.

– Argues that India has to follow the Japan, Korea and China playbook to grow global companies in Electronics, Aerospace and Defense. They want Indian firms to “leverage domestic demand, establish initial success in India, and expand globally”. They see iSPIRT as an ally.

– VISTAS groups stay away from fringe “swadeshi” group but are comfortable asking for preferential buying norms. Our position is to only ask for Level Playing Field.

– It turns out that we have two routes into Deptt of Electronics and IT (DEITy)- VISTAS and NASSCOM. IeSA insists that they (VISTAS) have more DEITy mindshare.

14

Policy Narratives (2 of 2)• What are “Indian Products”?

– Lots of discussion on this within government. Current thinking is that two conditions have to be met: (a) IPR from India (e.g. Pharma), and (b) commercial benefits retained in India (e.g. Maruti)

• Outcome versus quantity argument– We have 3X startups on Angel List as Israel and 3X product engineers.

But we draw in only 50% of Israel’s VC investments, and have poor outcomes (2 vs 85 exits in 2011).

– Have been cautioned against having the quantity mindset. This created the engineering graduates crisis. Despite explosion in quantity, quality remains abysmal.

– So focus should be on creating more winners rather than more players.

15

May 4th Monthly meeting is face-to-face in Bangalore

(dates to be announced soon)